The invention relates to a water storage device having a powered anode and a method of controlling the water storage device.
Powered anodes have been used in the water heater industry. To operate properly, a powered anode typically has to resolve two major concerns. First, the powered anode should provide enough protective current to protect exposed steel within the tank. The level of exposed steel will vary from tank to tank and will change during the lifetime of the tank. Second, the protective current resulting from the powered anode should be low enough to reduce the likelihood of excessive hydrogen.
There are at least two techniques currently available in the water heater industry for using a powered anode to protect a tank. One technique adjusts anode voltage levels based on the conductivity of the water. However, this technique does not measure the protection level of the tank and tanks with excessive exposed steel could be inadequately protected. The second technique periodically shuts off the current to the anode electrode and uses the electrode to “sense” the protection level of the tank. This technique adapts to the changing amount of exposed steel in the tank, but does not adapt to changing water conductivity levels. In addition, this technique can have problems in high conductivity waters since currently produced titanium electrodes with mixed metal oxide films have a tendency to drift in their reference voltage measurements in high conductivity water. It would be beneficial to have another alternative to the just-described techniques.